America's Credibility Is In Tatters On Iran

Nuclear Terror: With the top U.S. Mideast commander warning Congress that sanctions against Iran aren't working, both the vice president and secretary of state talk up attack. Are they crying wolf?

A liar is hard to believe even when he tells the truth.

We've heard the White House and the State Department tell us that sanctions on Iran are working.

Now along comes Marine Gen. James Mattis, commander of the U.S. Central Command, who confirmed to the Senate Armed Service Committee on Tuesday that "the current diplomatic and economic efforts" are not effective.

As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, Mattis also told Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that a Mideast Sunni-vs.-Shiite nuclear arms race is certain once Iran is confirmed as being nuclear-armed.

"At least one other nation has told me they would do that," he said. "At a leadership level they have assured me they would not stay without a nuclear weapon if Iran armed."

The day before, Vice President Joseph Biden let loose a whopper before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee: "The purpose of this pressure is not to punish" Tehran.

Someone had better tell White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who over and over again boasts of "the most punitive and comprehensive sanctions regime against Iran in history."

According to Biden, "big nations can't bluff, and presidents of the United States cannot and do not bluff. And President Barack Obama is not bluffing."

Actions, not tough-sounding words, prove whether or not a bluff is a bluff. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush never had to send their running mate out to quell fears that the president was delivering empty words on military action.

Reagan bombed Libya, liberated the Caribbean island of Grenada, and defied both parties' establishments in Washington by embarking on a missile defense program that sent the Soviet Union to the ash heap of history.

Bush swiftly invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, ousted Saddam Hussein in Iraq, then similarly defied the party establishments with the successful 2007 Iraq surge.

Interviewed by ABC this week, Obama's new Secretary of State John Kerry echoed the "he's not bluffing" message. Obama "has been so definitive this time," Kerry said.

Like Gen. Mattis, Kerry warned that a nuclear Iran "will spur a nuclear arms race. It has risks for greater terrorism. It will be destabilizing ... and that's why the president has said so clearly his policy is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon."

Nuclear Terror: With the top U.S. Mideast commander warning Congress that sanctions against Iran aren't working, both the vice president and secretary of state talk up attack. Are they crying wolf?

A liar is hard to believe even when he tells the truth.

We've heard the White House and the State Department tell us that sanctions on Iran are working.

Now along comes Marine Gen. James Mattis, commander of the U.S. Central Command, who confirmed to the Senate Armed Service Committee on Tuesday that "the current diplomatic and economic efforts" are not effective.

As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, Mattis also told Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that a Mideast Sunni-vs.-Shiite nuclear arms race is certain once Iran is confirmed as being nuclear-armed.

"At least one other nation has told me they would do that," he said. "At a leadership level they have assured me they would not stay without a nuclear weapon if Iran armed."

The day before, Vice President Joseph Biden let loose a whopper before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee: "The purpose of this pressure is not to punish" Tehran.

Someone had better tell White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who over and over again boasts of "the most punitive and comprehensive sanctions regime against Iran in history."

According to Biden, "big nations can't bluff, and presidents of the United States cannot and do not bluff. And President Barack Obama is not bluffing."

Actions, not tough-sounding words, prove whether or not a bluff is a bluff. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush never had to send their running mate out to quell fears that the president was delivering empty words on military action.

Reagan bombed Libya, liberated the Caribbean island of Grenada, and defied both parties' establishments in Washington by embarking on a missile defense program that sent the Soviet Union to the ash heap of history.

Bush swiftly invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, ousted Saddam Hussein in Iraq, then similarly defied the party establishments with the successful 2007 Iraq surge.

Interviewed by ABC this week, Obama's new Secretary of State John Kerry echoed the "he's not bluffing" message. Obama "has been so definitive this time," Kerry said.

Like Gen. Mattis, Kerry warned that a nuclear Iran "will spur a nuclear arms race. It has risks for greater terrorism. It will be destabilizing ... and that's why the president has said so clearly his policy is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon."

According to Kerry, if Tehran keeps "pushing the limits and not coming with a serious set of proposals or prepared to actually resolve this, obviously the risks get higher and confrontation becomes more possible."

But this greatest danger the free world faces has been festering forever. Going back well into the Bush administration, the West has been sitting on a nuclear time bomb, the ticking of which everyone has pretended not to hear.

President Obama had a chance to avoid war by getting behind Iran's freedom fighters during the Green Revolution in the summer of 2009; he refused, believing he could get the mullahs to the negotiating table and cast his spell on them.

Since then his administration has been all over the map. Sanctions are causing "a level of disruption to the Iranian economy and the Iranian leadership that have never been achieved before," Carney assured us a year ago; today, Biden claims sanctions, which obviously aren't working, were never intended to punish Iran.

Maybe this president will end up attacking Iran — especially if he thinks it will help oust Republicans from control of the House of Representatives in next year's elections. But today his minions scramble to convince one and all he isn't "commander-in-bluff."

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